Former Glendale Community College standout Alex Sarkissian concludes excellent season for Pepperdine tennis

COLLEGE UPDATE:

One-time GCC ace goes to NCAA's final 16; Chapjian, Lewis-Clark still alive in NAIA World Series.

May 28, 2013|By Grant Gordon, grant.gordon@latimes.com

Glendale Angelenos and Glendale Community College product…

The following are updates on area athletes at the collegiate level.

Alex Sarkissian (Glendale Community College, 2011) Pepperdine University tennis junior: After a wildly successful and undefeated sophomore season for Glendale Community College in 2011, Sarkissian moved on to play for the Waves.

After redshirting his first season at Pepperdine, Sarkissian put together a phenomenal rookie year.

His season concluded in the NCAA Singles Championship tournament, making it all the way to the final 16 before falling Friday to Tulsa’s Japie De Klerk in a dramatic match, 7-6 (7-0), 6-7 (3-7), 6-2, at the Khan Outdoor Tennis Complex in Urbana, Ill.

The loss put a close to a season in which Sarkissian earned Intercollegiate Tennis Assn. All-American status as a singles player in addition to spots on the All-West Coast Conference second team in both singles and doubles for the Waves. Sarkissian posted an overall 23-6 record his junior season.

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Ranked 62nd in the ITA singles poll coming into the NCAA tourney, Sarkissian defeated No. 34 Hunter Reese of Tennessee, 6-3, 1-6, 6-4 in the first round and put on his best performance and pulled off his biggest upset in the second round, sweeping No. 10 Ryan Lipman of Vanderbilt, 6-4, 6-2.

As a team, No. 12 Pepperdine advanced to the quarterfinals of the NCAA Tournament and lost to No. 2 Georgia, 4-2, on May 18, finishing the year with a 27-6 record. Sarkissian lost a hard-fought match to Nathan Pasha, 2-6, 7-5, 6-2.

Sako Chapjian (Glendale Community College, 2011) Lewis-Clark State baseball senior: The Hoover High graduate, who was a standout at GCC and also played for the Glendale Angelenos, is wrapping up his college career with his fourth stop — two junior colleges, two four-year schools.

Chapjian and Lewis-Clark, an NAIA school renowned for producing Major League Baseball players, are still going strong, having staved off elimination and advanced to the NAIA World Series semifinals with a dramatic 3-2 win over The Master’s College on Tuesday afternoon in Lewiston, Id.

Chapjian came off the bench and went 0 for 1 as a pinch hitter.

Seventh-seeded Lewis-Clark, which hosts the series, scored all three of its runs in the bottom of the ninth for the comeback.

Lewis-Clark (44-14) will play against a team to be determined and at a time to be determined in the semifinals on Wednesday. (For information when pairings are released, visit www.naia.org.)